Many more Michigan Men part 9: Barry Larkin

Previously: Part 1 (Chris Sabo), Part 2 (Kelly Dransfeldt, Scott Kamieniecki, Heath Murray, and Geoff Zahn), Part 3 (Mike Matheny), Part 4 (Steve Ontiveros), Part 5 (Drew Henson), Part 6 (Hal Morris), Part 7 (Charlie Gehringer and George Sisler), Part 8 (Jim Abbott)

A few months ago I embarked upon a project of scanning all of the cards in my collection of any other Michigan Baseball alumni not already included on my Player Collections page. That includes anything that arrived via trade, was already in my collection otherwise, or was part of a complete set (or set in-progress). As you can imagine it took quite a while to get everything done, but about 250+ cards later, I finally have something to show for it! These posts will show off new player collections or new cards for existing PCs. Some players will join the group that I supercollect and others will be guys I just pick up whenever I can. If you have anything I don't and feel like trading, please let me know as I'd love to build up these collections!

In many ways I like to think I saved the best for last, since Barry Larkin is without a doubt the best MLB player to come out of Michigan for quite a while, no offense to J.J. Putz or Jim Abbott, among others.  The man was part of a Wolverine talent explosion that led the Reds to a World Series title in 1990, was a 12-time All-Star and the 1995 NL MVP, and capped a 19-year career as one of the game's best ever shortstops with his 2012 induction into the Hall of Fame.  There's really no reason for me to add to that, plus the countless other words I've devoted to Larkin on both my blogs, so let's just fast forward to the meat of the post, shall we?

Unlike most of the other players in this series, Larkin is in no way a brand new PC for me, but that wasn't necessarily the main goal of these posts.  Part of what I was doing was showing off previously-unscanned cards of other Michigan Baseball alumni that were locked away in my collection of complete (or mostly-complete!) sets.  Barry was by far the biggest beneficiary of this project.  How much?  Well, I'll get to that in a bit, but first, here's 10 favorites out of all the cards I added to his PC:

1994 Bowman's Best (with Jeter)

A multi-player veteran/prospect card that actually lives up to its billing?  With the prospect actually outperforming the star in many ways?  Is this real life?  I imagine Topps' first Bowman's Best offering is a bit polarizing, but I like it, partly because of the fun Mirror Image subset, which eventually found its way to being a standalone insert.  It's enjoyable enough as it is, but as a rare example of a good dual-player card, I thought it deserved an extra thumbs-up here.

1996 Leaf Preferred Steel

'96 Leaf Preferred was a fairly unique product that I actually purchased not long after it arrived that year.  Thanks to the fact that the boxes weren't ridiculously expensive, plus a few side purchases, it didn't take me too long to complete the Steel insert set.  Better yet, I eventually shed the "OMG don't take it out of its package!" mentality and peeled every single one of them, making them better looking, and a bit easier to scan, though they still end up looking a bit dark, as you can see.  Larkin easily justified his entry into this set by winning the NL MVP the previous season.

1996 Zenith Mozaics (with Morris, Sanders)

I showed off this complete set way back in 2011 (with a couple others), and it remains one of my favorites to this day.  It was a typically well done Pinnacle insert with a fun concept and generally good player selection (I covered my complaints in that post).  I love that Larkin is the centerpiece here, and it's even cooler that one of his cohorts is fellow Michigan alum Hal Morris.  Reggie Sanders actually makes sense as the third player thanks to an All-Star 1995.

1997 Fleer (#296)

I still haven't done an entire post devoted to my all-time favorite Fleer set, but I will someday because it certainly deserves it.  It's funny to me that Fleer's 1997 flagship product set itself apart from the rest that year with a non-glossy card stock since it was only a few years removed from that being the norm.  Besides the large set size and interesting subsets, I've always admired what Fleer did for a few years during that era, stamping accolades like "All-Star" on the base cards instead of creating superfluous subsets.  Lastly, this is an excellent action shot of the three-time Gold-Glover (in an era dominated by Ozzie Smith at the position) in the field.

1998 Studio Portraits 8 x 10

Barry was the penultimate subject of Donruss' second offering that included these fantastic 8x10 portraits.  When I showed off the full set in May of 2011 I called for a quick entrance for Larkin to the Hall, and I didn't have to wait very long, fortunately.  I consider this version a nice improvement on the pretty good 1997 version, with the simple white border and excellent action shot background a step up from the gray stripes the previous year.

1999 Upper Deck Retro

'99 Retro was a very cool set thanks to Upper Deck taking the retro concept and running with it.  From the card stock choice to the set arriving in the form of a lunch box to the mix of stars old and young, it's always been a winner in my book.  What puts this card over the edge for me, though, is the sweet white with red pinstripes and black sleeves Reds jersey.  That's actually the style of jersey I grabbed when Ken Griffey Jr. headed to Cincy the following year, and I still wear it from time to time!

 2001 Donruss Rookie Reprints (#1354/1987)

In looking back at my post covering this complete set, I'm once again noting that the '87 set dominates the 2001 Reprint issues with eight cards, better than the two subsequent years, which total five each.  It's no surprise, though, since Larkin is part of the legendary 1985 draft class, the first round of which included B.J. Surhoff, Will Clark, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmerio; Randy Johnson would follow in the second round and Tino Martinez in the third, to give you an idea of the staggering amount of talent involved.  Anyway, Donruss was celebrating turning 20 and managed to pick a pretty nice array of rookies to reprint, then serial-numbered them to the year of the card's issue--a manufacturer after my own heart.

2001 Stadium Club

I already said '97 was my favorite all-time Fleer set, and to that I'd add 2001 as my favorite ever version of Stadium Club.  I've often had a soft spot for the annoyingly defunct Topps offering, and I think that reached its pinnacle with the 2001 set, which features absolutely gorgeous cards like this one.  The epitome of what a horizontal card should look like, we get an amazing full-bleed photo with a highly attractive section featuring the player's name, position and team, plus the year in a box matched with the team's primary color.  This is a flat-out beautiful photo, too, with Barry in the previously-mentioned awesome uni having made it safely to second in a cloud of dust, calling time (or asking the audience if they're not entertained?) while the White Sox's Jose Valentin looks on.  Ok, great, now I'll have to do a whole post on 2001 Stadium Club too!

2001 Topps Combos (with Morgan, Griffey, Bench)

I wouldn't say this insert set itself is among my favorites, but I do have fond memories of Topps' 50th anniversary flagship set that year, and regardless, this is a great card that came out of it.  Topps' Combos insert featured some "what-if?" cards, of sorts, like this one, featuring a lineup that probably would have won about 10 straight titles.  Due to their 1970s Reds and Cincinnati connections, the card was titled "Big Red Machine," but I'd argue that "Strong Up the Middle" would be just as appropriate thanks to the HOF double-play combo and catcher to go with a future HOF CF!  This one also scores points for being a fairly well done art card.

2003 Diamond Kings

And speaking of artistic cards, our final subject today is very appropriate since Barry truly was one of the kings of the diamond.  This beautiful set was in its second year as a base set after being a featured insert starting in the early 90s, and of course a favorite base subset beginning in the 80s.  The 2002 set looks amazing itself, and that makes me want to grab a copy of Larkin's card, but this one is very well done, including an excellent portrait highlighted by a border featuring a bit more than a corner of Cincinnati red, playing off the colors on Barry's hat and jersey.

These 10 are great, but they're just a small fraction of the total I added to Larkin's PC thanks to this project.  How small, you ask?  Well, in total, I was able to bump his collection up to 201 cards, making what's most definitely a huge milestone one a blog that likes to celebrate much smaller ones.  In fact, Larkin is only the second player in my Michigan Baseball collection to reach 200 (with the other being Rich Hill, of course).  It's a collection that doesn't yet rival that of Chris over at Nachos Grande (who's way ahead of me and appears to have plenty more not even posted yet!), but if nothing else I'm glad to be in good company with such a devoted collector.  And I do have a FEW more to show off from recent purchases, so there's that.

In summary, Barry Larkin is awesome, his cards are awesome, I have a ton of them, and Chris has lots more, so yay Barry Larkin and yay collecting!

Many more Michigan Men part 8: Jim Abbott

Previously: Part 1 (Chris Sabo), Part 2 (Kelly Dransfeldt, Scott Kamieniecki, Heath Murray, and Geoff Zahn), Part 3 (Mike Matheny), Part 4 (Steve Ontiveros), Part 5 (Drew Henson), Part 6 (Hal Morris), Part 7 (Charlie Gehringer and George Sisler)

A month or two ago I embarked upon a project of scanning all of the cards in my collection of any other Michigan Baseball alumni not already included on my Player Collections page. That includes anything that arrived via trade, was already in my collection otherwise, or was part of a complete set (or set in-progress). As you can imagine it took quite a while to get everything done, but about 250+ cards later, I finally have something to show for it! These posts will show off new player collections or new cards for existing PCs. Some players will join the group that I supercollect and others will be guys I just pick up whenever I can. If you have anything I don't and feel like trading, please let me know as I'd love to build up these collections!

Today's featured player is a guy who shows up in a lot of collectors' PCs, and I think that says a lot about him given his limited career and varying degrees of success.  Jim Abbott's story is well-known to collectors and baseball fans young and old, but it's still worth recapping briefly.
Jim was born in Flint, Michigan, and due to a deformity, was born without a right hand.  Thanks to a tenacious attitude and wonderfully supportive parents, he overcame that obstacle to become an improbably successful collegiate and pro pitcher.  His success started at Michigan (1985-88) and with the US teams of the '87 Pan American Games and '88 Olympics.  His resume included the 1987 Golden Spikes award (best amateur baseball player) and a Gold Medal in 1988 (with baseball being a demonstration sport at the time).

As if that wasn't unbelievable enough, he was the 8th overall pick in the '88 draft, selected by the Angels.  He rose to the Majors quickly the following season and won 47 games over four seasons, including 18 in 1991, before being traded to the Yankees in 1992 (in a deal that brought future Angels stalwart J.T. Snow to California).  On September 4 the following season, Jim threw one of the unlikeliest no-hitters in the history of the game, cementing his legend.  It was amazing enough that his unorthodox delivery, which included holding his glove on his right arm, then quickly transferring it his pitching hand, worked at all in amateur ball, and here he'd accomplished something many better pitchers never did!  Ultimately his success was somewhat short-lived as he appeared in just 10 Major League seasons, going 87-108, but the fact he reached the highest level of the game and achieved so much success has inspired many to overcome their own limitations, be they more manageable or severe.

Whenever I think about Abbott's inspiring story I love to reference a great clip from the tragically cancelled Party Down:

Jim Abbott indeed.

So today I'll highlight 35 new cards I added to my existing Abbott collection (all hits) to give me a new total of 40.  Since that's a lot to show off, I chose 10 that seemed to be good examples:

1989 Bowman RC

1989 Topps RC

1989 Upper Deck RC

These are Jim's three "flagship" set RCs I own; the rest appear to hail from traded and rookie-type sets, but I'll chase those eventually.  '89 Bowman has never been a favorite of mine since the cards are oversized and the design doesn't do much for me.  The Topps is an improvement despite the fact it comes from such a crappy junk wax set, since Abbott is photographed with Michigan.  And out of the three, I have to imagine that the most well-liked is my favorite, the multi-exposure, horizontal offering from Upper Deck's landmark set, giving you a bit of a look at how his delivery worked.

1992 Baseball Card Magazine '70 Topps Replicas

This is about as oddball as my Abbott collection gets, at least for now, although I do have stuff from other notables such as Classic and Post.

1992 Upper Deck (#78)

While I wouldn't consider this a "Michigan Uniform" card, the mock-up--designed to look like a college dorm room--is pretty cool.  Remember CRTs?  For the sake of completeness, here's the back, courtesy of COMC:

Stay in school, kids!  Forever!  Don't try to get a job, those don't exist anymore anyway.

1994 Ultra

I wanted to include a card of Abbott with each of the teams he played with, so here's my Yankees nomination:  a great horizontal version from 1994 Ultra, a set that featured great photography but a surprisingly stupid design on its cards that were rotated 90 degrees.  Make the writing horizontal too, idiots!  This is another nice look at his pitching motion, though.

1995 Pinnacle

Abbott signed with the ChiSox before the '95 season and played about half of it with them before heading back to the Angels in a trade.  Here he is, still wearing black and white with pinstripes, on a card from another of my favorite sets:  1995 Pinnacle.  The full-bleed photos are great, and the baseball seam area with the player's name and team are phenomenal.  As a White Sox Wolverine, it's no wonder he fits so prominently in Jeff's collecting interests.

1996 Upper Deck V.J. Lovero Showcase

I showed off this complete set more than a year ago on the other blog as it's one that most definitely deserves to be seen repeatedly thanks to the focus being on excellent photography done by a legend.  Card #1 in that set was Abbott, who gets a very nice portrait out of the deal.  Here's the back as I scanned in in that post covering the complete set:

Yep, I'd say that sums up the guy pretty well.

1999 Upper Deck

Our penultimate card of the day features the player with his ultimate team, the Brewers.  Jim was out for the '97 season, then appeared in five games (all wins) in his second tour with the White Sox in '98.  He then signed with Milwaukee for the 1999 season, although he went 2-8 in 20 games before hanging 'em up for good.  Here he is in a rare shot batting; the '99 season would feature Jim's only career ABs, and he amassed two hits and three RBI in 24 PAs.  How many one-handed players can boast THAT?

2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites

Lastly we have this Fan Favorites issue from 2003 which I included because I like the set so much.  It's actually one of several issues on which he features from the Fan Favorites/Archives offerings, which I know very well since I have at least one more incoming.  Considering his early success with the team, not to mention the hype that surrounded his accomplishment of making the Majors, it's no wonder he's still considered a fan-favorite years later.

While I'm at it, here's a quick reminder that Abbott's number has been retired by the University at Michigan's Ray Fisher Stadium,

and also that he's got a great biography out that I recommend titled Imperfect:  an Improbable Life that you should go grab on Amazon today!

All right, we've had eight days worth of posts, and we're down to just one player, so stay tuned!

Many more Michigan Men part 7: Charlie Gehringer and George Sisler

Previously: Part 1 (Chris Sabo), Part 2 (Kelly Dransfeldt, Scott Kamieniecki, Heath Murray, and Geoff Zahn), Part 3 (Mike Matheny), Part 4 (Steve Ontiveros), Part 5 (Drew Henson), Part 6 (Hal Morris)

A month or two ago I embarked upon a project of scanning all of the cards in my collection of any other Michigan Baseball alumni not already included on my Player Collections page. That includes anything that arrived via trade, was already in my collection otherwise, or was part of a complete set (or set in-progress). As you can imagine it took quite a while to get everything done, but about 250+ cards later, I finally have something to show for it! These posts will show off new player collections or new cards for existing PCs. Some players will join the group that I supercollect and others will be guys I just pick up whenever I can. If you have anything I don't and feel like trading, please let me know as I'd love to build up these collections!

I've got a double-header for you today, and as it turns out, it's a Hall of Fame double-header!  While getting ready to write up this post, which was originally going to cover just George Sisler, I thought about fellow pre-WWII star Charlie Gehringer, and though I didn't expect to find much of him in my PC, I took a quick look anyway.  I was pleasantly surprised to come up with a trio of Gehringers and decided to include those today as well.

Fowlerville, Michigan native Charlie Gehringer was born 110 years ago and made his way to UM in 1922, but was discovered by a Tigers player the following year and earned a tryout in front of Detroit legend and player/manager Ty Cobb, who was immediately impressed by the young second-baseman.  The "Mechanical Man" ("You wind him up Opening Day and forget him" said teammate Doc Cramer) was a Tiger for all 19 of his Major League seasons, forming a legendary double-play combo with SS Billy Rogell, rivaled by the Whitaker-Trammell duo modern fans know so well.  A very reliable and durable fielder, he hit .320 for his career with 2839 hits, was a six-time All-Star and the 1937 AL MVP, and won a ring with the '35 Tigers (LOL Cubs) to go with AL pennants in '34 and '40.  After his playing career, he served in the Navy from '43-'45, then acted as GM and vice-president of his former team for several years in the 1950s.  He landed in the Hall of Fame in 1949 and compares very well to another enshrined 2B, Roberto Alomar.  The Tigers retired his number 2, and he also has a statue out beyond left-center field:

Here's my tiny (but soon-to-grow!) collection of Gehringers:

Gehringer's fellow Wolverine alum George Sisler was born 120 years ago near Akron, Ohio.  He played at Michigan from 1913-1915 and actually finished up a mechanical engineering degree.  Oh yeah, and his coach there was some guy named Branch Rickey.  Sisler then went on to a 15-year MLB career that included a .340 lifetime average and 2812 hits, plus the 1922 AL MVP with St. Louis, a season in which he led the league with a .420 average (which, just to emphasize, is a FOUR TWENTY AVERAGE), one of two seasons in which he eclipsed the .400 mark.  That year he also ran up a 41-game hitting streak, since broken (of course!).  A somewhat well-rounded first baseman, he also tacked on 102 HR and 375 steals to his career stats, although the number for which he was most famous was 257--the single-season hits record that stood until 2004 when Ichiro broke it.  George played for the St. Louis Browns (twice), Washington Senators, and Boston Braves, while also managing the Browns from '24-'26.  Sisler had to wait until his fourth attempt to enter the Hall, but the competition was, shall we say, stiff?  Have a look, friends--he managed to place 11th in 1936, the year of the original class (Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, Matthewson, and Walter Johnson), but led all vote-getters in 1939.  And that '36 list is just INSANE!Here's my small Sisler collection, which also includes three "hits":  a manu-letter, manu-logo, and manu-bat barrel:

 

Well, seven posts in and I STILL have a pair of guys left to show off!  Watch for those soon....

Many more Michigan Men part 6: Hal Morris

Previously: Part 1 (Chris Sabo), Part 2 (Kelly Dransfeldt, Scott Kamieniecki, Heath Murray, and Geoff Zahn), Part 3 (Mike Matheny), Part 4 (Steve Ontiveros), Part 5 (Drew Henson)

A month or two ago I embarked upon a project of scanning all of the cards in my collection of any other Michigan Baseball alumni not already included on my Player Collections page. That includes anything that arrived via trade, was already in my collection otherwise, or was part of a complete set (or set in-progress). As you can imagine it took quite a while to get everything done, but about 250+ cards later, I finally have something to show for it! These posts will show off new player collections or new cards for existing PCs. Some players will join the group that I supercollect and others will be guys I just pick up whenever I can. If you have anything I don't and feel like trading, please let me know as I'd love to build up these collections!

Today I have for you ANOTHER Wolverine that went on to play for either the Yankees, the Reds, or both!  I'm referring this time to 1B/OF Hal Morris.  An Alabama man who played high school ball in Indiana before heading northeast to Ann Arbor, Hal was a college teammate of future Reds (and pro teammates!) Barry Larkin and Chris Sabo as well as future Yankee (but NOT teammate, just missed by a year) Scott Kamieniecki.  The Reds trio led Michigan to a fantastic 1983 season (a very good year, if I do say so myself) that started with a 33-0 record and ended with a third place College World Series finish.

The Yanks drafted Morris in the 8th round in '86, gave him 30 appearances over '88 and '89, then flipped him for a guy that lost 19 games the following season plus a guy that never cracked the Majors again.  Sound familiar, Yankees fans from the 80s-early 90s?  Meanwhile, Morris responded to the trade by hitting .340 in 107 games on his way to a third-place finish in the ROY voting.  Oh, and he topped that by being part of the Reds' World Champions that season.  And by "part," I mean he drove in the Series-winning run after a fantastic NLCS.

Hal was a mainstay in Cincy until after the '97 season when he signed with the Royals, for whom he had a pretty solid season.  He returned to the Reds in '99 and remained there until the Tigers purchased his contract in July of the following year, and that's where he finished his career.  In 13 seasons he compiled a very nice .304 AVG to go with a .361 OBP.  He was by no means a slugger, run-producer, or speedster, but Hal did finish his career with a WAR of 13.3, and a 13-year career is nothing to sniff at.  So here's to yet another Michigan Yankee/Red who also played for the Tigers!

Here's how my Morris PC shakes out right now, to go along with this awesome Fan Favorites auto:

There's still a few players left, plus I'm way behind on posting all my other stuff, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I'll get to it eventually, I promise!